


Return to Hogwarts

by Hilarita



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Other, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-24
Updated: 2004-04-24
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:11:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hilarita/pseuds/Hilarita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus is about to return to Hogwarts as a teacher</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return to Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2004, so not compatible with later canon. First published on LJ, under a different pseud.

‘Merlin, I’m not even twenty-five yet, and I’ve done all the evil things you can possibly name.’ He spoke bitterly, lips twisting, fingers clenched. ‘I’ve killed people, raped people, betrayed people, drunk and drugged myself into oblivion, and tried to commit suicide.’ His face had a blank stare as he catalogued his personal horrors. ‘And you think I’m a suitable person to teach at your precious school?’  
Dumbledore smiled sadly. ‘Indeed I do, Severus. Firstly, you are the most qualified potions master in this country, no matter what your background may be. Secondly, the suicide, drinking and drugs are partly a result of your not having any means of distraction. Thirdly, who else can help the Slytherins? Severus, you are needed quite desperately at Hogwarts. Please come.’ The words ‘for my sake’ hovered unsaid.   
Severus sighed. He would agree. He couldn’t do otherwise – he knew better than Dumbledore how he needed a way out of his present circumstances. He laid his head on the table, and tried not to cry. That required too much control these days. He often wondered where all his control had gone, the control he required every day of his life as a spy for Dumbledore. He wondered if the price was too high, but it couldn’t be. He was often surprised by his sudden discovery of morality in the shards of broken love.   
Dumbledore gave him a room in the dungeons, and the headship of Slytherin house. The dungeons because there was no chance of anyone overhearing his screams when the nightmares overtook him. Dumbledore was trying to cure him of his addiction to Dreamless Sleep potion, so he rarely got an unbroken night’s sleep. Irascible, irritable, cranky, all because the meddling bastard wouldn’t let him have potions. Inwardly, he knew it was for the best.   
Every morning he did some deep breathing, some physical exercises to keep himself in trim. At first, Dumbledore had forced him out of bed and round the lake for a walk before breakfast. He hated it, but knew from all his reading on wizarding depression that it was the best and only way to help. After a while he did it because Voldemort was not dead, merely dispelled for the moment. The Dark Mark was still visible, reminding him of his pride every day. He might again be needed as a spy.  
He felt very young compared to the rest of the faculty. He found it hard to be friendly to those who had taught him not so many years ago, and who at best treated him with a cautious reserve, a known Death-Eater. Only Minerva, who knew of his spying, treated him civilly, along with Albus, his saviour. He’d just about got over the fearsome crush he’d once had on Dumbledore, and could allow him to be a friend – of sorts. He found it difficult to relax around the man who heard his nightmares, had seen his breakdown. He was still bitterly ashamed of that, and not fully recovered. Dumbledore had installed him in his new rooms at the very end of the summer term, and worked at recovering him all summer. Carefully measured work at his new syllabus, carefully managed physical exercise morning and evening, with obligatory socialising in the staff-room, and obligatory sleepless nights. The summer months became a bit of blur to him, first in the period of ‘cold turkey’ of which he remembered little, the rest a careful routine that would dictate the rest of his life. He practised the meditation techniques he had first learnt in order to perfect his occlumency.   
During the daytime, everything was painted in bright primary colours, and it seemed to him that it might not be entirely hopeless, that this redemption offered by Dumbledore would allow him a life or purpose. At night, in his room, it seemed more like a punishment. He had no doubt he needed to be punished, though.   
It was late August, 1982. In a few days, he would be teaching. Dumbledore had already reminded him to be careful with the great pureblood families, but also to watch out for Slytherins. ‘The damaged children’, he had called them, and Severus thought back to his own schooldays. He did not want to comfort children. He found children difficult, and had done even as a child himself. Dumbledore had also given him a strict lecture on sexual ethics. He felt as though he were fifteen again. Nevertheless, he paid attention gravely as Dumbledore listed the ways of discouraging overeager students, and also the ways of disciplining the adult mind. He did not think it would happen to him. After all, everyone considered him grimly unattractive, and the schoolchildren were sufficiently removed from the right circles to know what an able whore he was. 

That night he dreamt about the first time he raped a Muggle. A young man, no more than thirty. He was dark-haired and terrified. Lucius had bound him and presented him to Severus ‘as a gift’. He had needed little encouragement (Lucius never let him top), and he found it a great pleasure to have control over the encounter, Lucius looking on, with the man screaming for pity. He had not been raped himself then. But the man changed, and became Albus, crying for mercy he could never receive. Severus awoke, throat hoarse, but also with a strong erection. As he noticed it, the sickness swept over him, and he stumbled to his bathroom, and was desperately sick at his own perversion. He sat, naked, by his toilet bowl until he was sure the last sickness had passed. He also made a mental note to wear nightclothes in future, as he could not preclude the possibility that students might need him late at night. He half-missed the days in which Dumbledore would come to visit him after his nightmares, and sit by him until he fell asleep again. But he had an entire lifetime to live with his deeds, and Dumbledore could not be there every time. He put on some clothes, and went out to walk the halls of Hogwarts.  
It was nearly five am before he returned to his bed, only two hours before his alarm would wake him. 

Lunchtime next day found him walking by the lake in a gentle drizzle. He was genuinely apprehensive about that evening, when the students would arrive, and he would be expected to take up his role as teacher. He tried to keep the feelings under control, but largely failed, as he welcomed them as a change from the crushing guilt. To his consternation, Minerva came out to join him. She was needling as ever: “Do I detect a hint of nervousness, Severus? In the man who faced the Dark Lord so often?” He found the remark in bad taste, and gave no reply. He felt about 100, not twenty-five. After a short silence he felt obliged to remark, “Yes. I am. Oh God. What if they ask me about …sex?” Minerva tried not to laugh. “The traditional coward’s route is to refer them to Poppy Pomphrey, and the texts in the library. But while I think of it, I’d better tell you some things about young girls and menstruation.” He nodded, putting his ‘clinical learning face’ on, from his days spent studying anatomy with his potions master. He managed to maintain it through Minerva’s discourse on menarche, and period pain, and the possibility of pregnancy and wizardly means of contraception and disease control. Most of which he knew already, apart from the menarche and period pain bits. He wondered why wizarding women in general didn’t know about the excellent pain remedies available. He’d spent some of the summer brewing some up for the infirmary supplies. The other part of his brain was thanking Merlin he’d asked Minerva now, before some wretched girl asked him about contraceptive potions. The remainder of his wits were still devoted to panicking, but overall, it was an improvement.  
She walked him back into the school for afternoon tea (and a small glass of sherry for his nerves). He felt quite pathetically grateful for this, and even more grateful that tea was taken in her rooms, away from the uncomfortable remarks from other teachers. They sat in companionable silence after tea (well, on Minerva’s side at least. Snape was fidgetting like mad). At five to six, she ushered him out of the door, and went down to collect the new first years. He made his way to the Hall, and sat in the position reserved for the Potions Master. Unfortunately, it was next to Hector Woolton, the Dark-Arts idiot (as Snape had christened him).   
“Well, well, Severus. A few youngsters for you to mould in your house’ illustrious image coming up!”  
Snape shot him a poisonous glare, but returned, “I am sure that they will do great credit to the house.”   
“Going to teach them how to stay out of Azkaban?”  
“I can think of no greater ambition. Look how many Ravenclaws have stayed out.” A dig at Hector’s old house, which had spawned a number of ingenious followers of Voldemort. Severus gripped his fork more tightly. He would not lose his temper before a schoolful of impressionable idiots. He seriously regretted the demise of the sport of duelling. He would have made this upstart defend himself against some seriously dark spells. Then he took hold of himself, remembering what that sort of thing led to. He was hard-pressed not to throw up on his plate. But it was time for the sorting. A selection of bedraggled-looking children were brought in, and sorted by the Hat. Severus tuned out the happy-clappy-we-have-peace song, and most of the first sortings. Several children of unfortunate parentage were being sorted into his house. Many of them were now orphans, with parents either killed by aurors or in Azkaban. Similarly, there were many orphans among the Gryffindors (mostly children of aurors or muggles killed by the Death Eaters). He could not afford to be moved by so many reminders of his past life. He stared grimly at his plate, sipping water all the while, and then grimly ate as plain a meal as he could manage from the lavish feast unveiled. After, of course, Dumbledore had introduced him (cue suspicious looks from older Gryffindors, and faint looks of surprise from older Slytherins, who had doubtless heard about him at home), and the school song had been laboriously tortured to death.

The feast ended, he left by the staff door and hurried down to the dungeons in advance of the students, ready to guide the older years to their new dorms, and to give his speech to the new students.  
“Good evening. My name is Professor Snape, and I am the new head of Slytherin house….”


End file.
